Friday, December 19

Another half day for us at the preschool, and then a mis-step in choosing the dolmus home, resulting in an extra 45 minutes of traveling, but two nice encounters with people. An Iranian man was glad to hear English and commented that, "nobody speaks English here, and that is a very big problem." And two female students tried out their English on us and asked our names and we chatted a little bit. They were trying to talk with Aeden since he pulled out his flirty eyes for them, and I explained, "no Turkish, no English" and Lacey chimed in, "just baby language" and the two girls just giggled away.

I can't believe how far we've come since having to spend three days coercing Lacey to cross the busy road to walk to Migros and McDonald's (and then Brian having to carry her over the second half of the overpass because it was too loud and we were too close to the traffic). They're still very cautious on the streets and know to watch driveways and to look for cars turning onto side streets as we're crossing them, but they'll lean right out to look for cars now, tell me where our "hole" is so we're all ready, and just cover their ears when a big truck comes by instead of freezing and crying from the noise. And there's Maren, upset when there are enough seats on the dolmus that she has to sit down instead of standing up and being bounced around...
Got home to a red-bordered electricity bill, so I loaded everyone up after lunch to go to the post office and get the account paid up (supposedly handled by TED 2 months ago...). But I didn't want to spend the weekend in the dark if the power company decided that the time was up, and the universal red-border and same 77 YTL total that I've seen before got my attention even if I couldn't read any of the bill. Friday afternoon is apparently not the time to go to pay bills...the line was at the doorway and at least a dozen people long, while the clerks made sure to sip their tea and move at a snail's pace. I was just a little impatient I suppose. I paid the electricity bills and the phone bill, but was told I couldn't mail any letters because that part closed at 2 PM. Hmm. I finished up with that clerk and went to the one at the next window (who had just accepted a letter from another lady and was firing up the meter) and asked her if I could mail them. She helped me, and even asked the original clerk I had spoken to for help, which she gave. I either am learning the Turkish "systems" or have just had my letters filed in the round file instead of mailed to the US. I guess we'll find out sometime in the next few months!

Brian took his camera to school to photograph the frozen fog all around the school grounds. It is growing off of single sides of trees from the wind and cold, and makes things look very odd. There's an apartment complex on my bus route that has a cold cap on it and has frozen fog like this too.